What happens after 6 months of tape when they decide to "crack down" on J-walking? so they grab all the tapes from YOUR street and count how many times you step outside the crosswalk!!! Of course they can't get RANDOM people, watching the camera all the time would be too much work...because they don't know where random people live! that means the only things the cameras really do is watch the people who honestly have the right to be there in the first place! With so many cameras the only thing they can do is use them to DISCOVER crime, not deter it. get the difference?
It's funny how that works. when the bills for this new system start comming due, you'll start to see this happen more. Of couse J-walking is violating the law so stop whining when you get 365 tickets in the mail. Of course when people want the cameras removed it will then be "normal" law enforcement and the state will refuse to do it!
Better question: what happens when they get panning and zooming on your street...and they peer thru your window [with image enhancement] and see your wife 'blowing the meatwhistle'? "it was a Public camera..." after all! then they'll add nite vision, IR, thru the wall radar[to see the blind spots] get it! once it starts it doesn't ever stop!!!!
Except in "police" misconduct cases those tapes will mysteriously disapear! Of course once that happens a time or two, even the cops won't like them...or they'll take percautions to avoid "appearing" to violate the law on-camera, and then make the courts assume the camera is "god"...there in lies the problem...that the DEVICE becomes the record-keeper and while the data is impartial the lawyer persenting it isn't!
It already IS! Of course it only works because the top 2 hold 60% of the station market...if you change channels THEY are still getting paid! Now that the FCC has sold out the small business/community stations there is no real competition in the radio market meaning the labels pretty much have to pay to get any play now...I believe clearchannel is what started that trend...and they think it's just fine...
Billboard most likely uses the FCC mandated [due to RIAA lobbying] daily playlists that radio stations must submit daily. That's part of the automation deal... it's absolutely important that those logs be right because it's how royalties get paid to the "artists". Even though it's an ad, they probably still have to count it as having to pay royalties...it's funny how the complexity of the law can lead to such silliness. Billboard just gets a copy of the list emailed from the same system as RIAA reporting...the wonders of computers!
That same RIAA trouble is why there are few commercial stations that play independant music. The RIAA has made the playlist requirements so steep that your lawyers basically tell you not to do it because the "garage" bands aren't signed with a RIAA aproved label so you're playing with fire....it's akin to how the BSA operates in the software world. You can't track royalties, you can't confirm ownership, you can't submit the song to Billboard [because they're in cahoots!] The only stations to get away with it are the college stations that have "educational" exemptions from the most onereous requirements...and are somewhat expected to be playing crap...that way people don't listen to them!
First of all, independants don't pay them to play songs!
Second, the RIAA has made the legal requirements on stations so onereous that they ORDER DJs not to play "unauthorized" music...because the lawyers can't prove it's cleared by the RIAA and they would still have to pay royalties on it! but to who? get it?
Third, most radio stations are corperate owned nowdays...they play a strict playlist scientifically developed by corperate marketing to be properly balanced with political correctness, teen angst, and homogeny. DJs playing their own mix would make the company look bad!
But Transmeta is too busy trying to score big. Via is only able to do this because Intel left a void for socket 7 chipsets and AMD prefered to let Via grow up. Now, Via is a 200lb monkey. They are too big to put out of business and in particular their purchase of Centaur and S3 ensured that Intel can't get them with the patent portfolio [Via bought other chip companies with intel crosses...so intel has to play fair] If Transmeta was serious, they need to talk to Via... Via is growing...they're interested in playing fair with anybody! Transmeta doesn't have the clout on it's own to issue a motherboard like ITX...even though it would be absolutely killer if they did!
But they're finding LOTS of linux people willing to line up to help! I'd bet 50% of their Eden boards are purchased specifically to run linux in some capacity. Via in particular seems pretty set at toeing the windows line, but almost all the good Via eden fan sites include installing linux in some capacity.
Via in particular is precarious because MS could really hurt them if they get too far out-of-line. Fortunately, they have a good 30%+ share of the chipset market so MS can't ignore them...but they still have to roll their own chipset patches...notably Intel doesn't have to, do they? and that's all the power MS needs isn't it.
They really are dog slow. They've gotten better with the new 1.2GHz ones they're about equivelant to a 900MHz P3. Their claim to fame is that the whole board only uses 10-15 Watts...at 1.2GHz. True intel makes underclocked mobile Celerons that are blazing fast, but still not that low power. And that intel chip cost more than an entire Via Eden motherboard!! The via boards are tweaked for Fun projects. And they run cool so you can put them in many places you'd never put a normal motherboard. Many come with options to run on BATTERIES or DC power. Try that with a normal PC!
Actually, Transmeta would be a great aquisition for VIA at some point, but I expect Intel would never allow that. Intel licenses enough stuff from them that they won't go under...but they won't be famous either...funny how that works.
As for not having Linux on the mind that was a HUGE mistake on their part...Absolutely HUGE!! Their processor and the tech to make it x86 like is remarkable...on the fly emmulation...they could do anything! on demand....but they should have done their OWN at some point. They had this Linus guy working on their microcode... it's too bad he wasn't interested enough in Linux to do a native port to their processors...that would have rocked. But he's still technically on the payroll...so maybe...
You mean like the Via eden series of embeded boards that use Centuar's processors! Go to mini-itx.com and take a look...it's pretty close to what you want! There are about a dozen varieties of VIA ITX factor board out there right now with the most expensive being under $200!!! There's plenty of Linux how-tos there to get you going.
If pocket PC/zaurus modding is what you want check out Gumstix.com. It's an intel XScale processor 200 or 400MHz with 64Mb ram. It's ultra tiny but still really, really new [they only started in January!] And it runs Open Source Linux installed right out-of-the-box!!
but if Google was to follow proper XHTML and CSS it would be a huge push for standards. There are plenty of browsers out there that support the basics of XHTML and CSS2...for a matter of fact only MS IE is seriously broken. It would take a big push like Google to get MS to wake up and support standards or start watching Firefox numbers rise....a very bad thing. Also, if Google is doing it then you'll have a much better time convincing other web pages to do the same and copy Google....espically after they have a really big IPO.
You gotta remember, that type of mindshare positioning is a classic MS tactic [i.e. buy MS because Bill Gates is really rich works really well on those wall street types] MS has already anounced they want Google's "lunch"! Google should really take the first shot. Of course MS can fix its broswer easily for free...but they don't WANT to!!! You need a 500 LB gorilla to get them to move. And if MS does move...IE is now fixed to be standards compliant by a mandatory patch from MS and all those other "broken" pages magically work too, meaning you won't be needing IE specific tags to get YOUR standard's compliant page to work anymore.
actually that's a great idea. A 500 LB gorilla like google could really serve to keep all the big players honest! Google has nothing to loose by adopting web standards and everything to gain. MS key bargining chip is OS integration...If Google tries to play in that space they will loose. They need to ensure they create their own space to play in. Open and vocal endorcement of W3C standards as well as implementing them to the fullest is one way google can keep the playing field level. Their Primary market is internet searching...not web services...but keeping MS from fragmenting that market is a very important goal. Even MS is not big enough to deliberately break Google in IE... the uproar would be huge!
That a punk-kid college drop out started what's now a mulit-billion dollar company!! Where the irony comes in is that those very same companies...it doesn't matter who: Cisco, HP, SGI, nVidia, Microsoft, Apple...and the list goes on... Young out-of-work innovative kids. Would never have be allowed their success in today's world. The very companies they founded are continuing to work harder and harder to make sure that NEVER happens again... that's the lesson here more than anything else. Look where all the successful companies came from...so why do we need new/stricter laws?
But in practice "novel" means not patented before...and "non-obvious" has turned in to a joke.
Actually, the problem is that "normal" meatspace patents are fairly straight forward in inplementation. You can break out the blueprints [often included in the patent!] and compare your new idea to theirs. Much of the "innovation" the patent office claims is because your new hack around the current patent holder is ALSO patentable!! But with software, the author cites the results and locks the code up as "trade secret". so even proving that you're not infringing is impossible without going to court to sue for it.
But if they said up front they were going to bork people's systems they'd get in big trouble... So they're going to SAY pirates won't get downloads...then do something else. If you don't have a legal validated copy you won't be able to complain no matter what they do! Get it!
The problem is that the FCC was mandated to balance the spectrum between the haves and have nots...allowing for large public interest and smaller special interests to have a voice in the same markets. Under the current leadership they've went solely mercenary...to the highest bidder, damn the mandate. It's almost weekly that the big guys get bigger, and the small school stations get squeezed out on techinicalities! The roll out of HDTV has been stalled for 7 years now!!! Because of last minute lobbying by multinational/entertainment/tech companies trying to get end-to-end control of something free. Proposals to increase publicly available bands in the prime real estate about to be freed up for ultra low wattage things like Wireless internet and other communications go unattended while the FCC is already counting the profits they'll get selling the public's resource to the highest corperate bidder. In the manner of radio spectrum policy & public accountability the FCC is failing it's mandate famously!!
Yes, but the regulations created sort of a corperate socialism...Many companies like Cable, airlines, telco, and electric were originally regulated in 30 year terms...now expected to compete with venture capitalists with half the overhead from all the regulations that the established companies still have to follow.
It's time to face it that deregulation was just a wall street political coup so the players could make a lot of quick cash wrecking all those stable companies and using the profits to move the jobs offshore!
the w3c is being crapflooded by the special interests dumping large and complicated specs on them, then trying to lock them up with patents.
All of the big players, MS, Adobe, HP, IBM, etc are trying to turn the W3c into another version of IEEE or MPEG where they can reimlement their "old boys" standards. The heads of w3c need to wake up and realize that their orginazitions goals are directly contrary to most of their corperate "sponsor's" goals to get rich. Frankly, I think that Mozilla, opera, and Troll tech should focus on getting ALL of the web standards in place. A true CSS2, XHTML, etc solution is very powerful...realize that most of the web is still operating on crappy hacks of HTML4....even CSS2 is 5 years old!!!
Part of the problem is that there is a large philosophical difference between comercial software and OSS. Commerical software companies want every feature locked up in a giant complex mega-program. They "tolerate" plugin developers because it serves to Borrow the communities interests and keep them comming back. OSS on the other hand only thrives with small modular pieces. W3c's original designs fit that model very nicely...and they're not even being used all the way yet!!!! I routinely see PHP projects that make no use at all of higher-level web standards...hell, even slashdot only uses HTML 3.2...I'd love to see SVG implemented...even if those companies need to strip out the spec and sub-define it. SVG is a classic example of why I say they're getting crapflooded. It's readily apparent that SVG was "pre-fabbed" by Adobe as a Flash replacement browser rather than a data type. If what everybody is saying is true about it, the spec violates all of the principles of simplicity the W3c set out to create. Frankly SVG is the most begged for thing because a page like slashdot could exist without any graphics at all, it could be a pure asci stream!, if SVG support was handled properly...
Anyway, the biggest thing the browser developers need to do is start pushing normal web standards...they allow for cleaner presentation, more reusable server-side code and simply work better. There's only 3 non-ms browser makers of influance left...it's time they declare war on non-wc3 compliant browsers and put an end to all those 1999 era trogs!!! After all, windows browsing is covered by at least 2 of them...and downloading a simle browser like Opera or firefox has gotten to be less harmful than service packs from MS for 1999 IE!!! The evilist of evils would be to somehow create a new windows mime type for Alt browsers so that IE would treat pages opened like a "plugin" and open a stripped GUI of mozilla instead....It's amazing how many people will download realplayer, flash, shocwave, and Gator, but not put a little effort in Opera or Firefox which is SMALLER!!!
The problem with the PTO is the first come, first served thinking that permeates the office. Software was forbidden for nearly 30 years before the first patents including any software were granted. the problem with that is that very much of the industry was already out there. The PTO's burden of proof is only "that it hasn't been patented before" not that it's a truly original work or being done 100 other places.
But the question was to access the Linux partitions while running Windows. Ideally, he'd want to format the drive with EXT or Reiser and install windows on that. Of course that won't happen, so he wants to run windows when needed, but open/save files in the linux partitions...remember these are partitions on the same computer/HDD...so samba wouldn't work unless it was ported to windows...again, that's the kind of option he's looking for.
I can see lots of reasons for this. from ISPs that distribute windows only software, to software and hardware you just can't live without. If you want to boot into windows, do what you gotta do then save the info back to your native Linux. It works pretty well the other way, but then your always tied to windows formats like FAT32...he wants to cut that cord!!
Look at it this way, the people with illegal copies know who they are for the most part. The casual users who think they're "getting away with it" will have windows update running...so SP2 installer will most likely get downloaded anyway.
But when it tries to actually install, they'll check your serial number and THEN bork your system much like SP1 did. Then it adds extra hassle to people who didn't pay....if they're grandmas, and aunts, they'll get mildly pissed off for being "lied" to. If they're college students or such they'll either reinstall which is a big hassle with lots of warez downloaded, or they'll spring for a student copy which is really cheap.
Don't look at it as "singling them out" but rather as "hassling" them for not being legal and registered! That's MS right to do with their software...and it let's people running without paying know that they had to do extra to "get around" this... it's to the point you can't "accidentally" pirate windows anymore!
If somebody really wanted to be clever, they'd time a "linux switch" campaign to start the day XP2 is released...perhaps an easy to use version that can cover all the Grandmas and aunts out there. And free to pass around. It'll be a great time to point out that MS wants $300 for you to keep what you've got [because nobody pirates XP home and most will have to pay full price for XP Pro to keep their stuff!!], or you can use Linux LEGALLY for free!!! Novell could do this easily because they already have contacts at big retailers. they should be printing the LiveCDs off right now to stock the shelfs with. After all Suse 9.1 personal is only $30! Now if they could just get a boxed version of Crossover and WineX On the shelves for a reasonable price they'd be in a great position to pull this off!!!
who's to say they don't pull another SP1 and let you download it, but the installer borks your system if it can't validate your registration. Then it's got the added "convinence" to MS of having to make people not use their computers [until pirates crack it or they reinstall] or run out and pay now for a key that will work!
for device driver type cases, the easist thing to do is "bury" the source on the OEM CD right from the start. Sure it will get out eventually, but you won't have the pundits crying publically about it.
After all, you only have to release source to those who you give programs too. In the case of hardware, use the OEM CD to fufill your GPL obligation and get it over with...then you won't show up here and those who want source will have it...and never complain..get it. Also, password protect your downloads to limit them to registered hardware users. That way you're not "distributing" the drivers on line, only providing updates to your customers.
remember, your business is selling devices, not software...that's just a service. The trap many "hardware" vendors have fallen into lately is trying to sell $20 plastic hardware for inflated prices by locking up the drivers...it's a dead business model, you gotta adapt!
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It's funny how that works. when the bills for this new system start comming due, you'll start to see this happen more. Of couse J-walking is violating the law so stop whining when you get 365 tickets in the mail. Of course when people want the cameras removed it will then be "normal" law enforcement and the state will refuse to do it!
Better question: what happens when they get panning and zooming on your street...and they peer thru your window [with image enhancement] and see your wife 'blowing the meatwhistle'? "it was a Public camera..." after all! then they'll add nite vision, IR, thru the wall radar[to see the blind spots] get it! once it starts it doesn't ever stop!!!!
Except in "police" misconduct cases those tapes will mysteriously disapear! Of course once that happens a time or two, even the cops won't like them...or they'll take percautions to avoid "appearing" to violate the law on-camera, and then make the courts assume the camera is "god"...there in lies the problem...that the DEVICE becomes the record-keeper and while the data is impartial the lawyer persenting it isn't!
It already IS! Of course it only works because the top 2 hold 60% of the station market...if you change channels THEY are still getting paid! Now that the FCC has sold out the small business/community stations there is no real competition in the radio market meaning the labels pretty much have to pay to get any play now...I believe clearchannel is what started that trend...and they think it's just fine...
That same RIAA trouble is why there are few commercial stations that play independant music. The RIAA has made the playlist requirements so steep that your lawyers basically tell you not to do it because the "garage" bands aren't signed with a RIAA aproved label so you're playing with fire....it's akin to how the BSA operates in the software world. You can't track royalties, you can't confirm ownership, you can't submit the song to Billboard [because they're in cahoots!] The only stations to get away with it are the college stations that have "educational" exemptions from the most onereous requirements...and are somewhat expected to be playing crap...that way people don't listen to them!
First of all, independants don't pay them to play songs!
Second, the RIAA has made the legal requirements on stations so onereous that they ORDER DJs not to play "unauthorized" music...because the lawyers can't prove it's cleared by the RIAA and they would still have to pay royalties on it! but to who? get it?
Third, most radio stations are corperate owned nowdays...they play a strict playlist scientifically developed by corperate marketing to be properly balanced with political correctness, teen angst, and homogeny. DJs playing their own mix would make the company look bad!
But Transmeta is too busy trying to score big. Via is only able to do this because Intel left a void for socket 7 chipsets and AMD prefered to let Via grow up. Now, Via is a 200lb monkey. They are too big to put out of business and in particular their purchase of Centaur and S3 ensured that Intel can't get them with the patent portfolio [Via bought other chip companies with intel crosses...so intel has to play fair] If Transmeta was serious, they need to talk to Via... Via is growing...they're interested in playing fair with anybody! Transmeta doesn't have the clout on it's own to issue a motherboard like ITX...even though it would be absolutely killer if they did!
Via in particular is precarious because MS could really hurt them if they get too far out-of-line. Fortunately, they have a good 30%+ share of the chipset market so MS can't ignore them...but they still have to roll their own chipset patches...notably Intel doesn't have to, do they? and that's all the power MS needs isn't it.
They really are dog slow. They've gotten better with the new 1.2GHz ones they're about equivelant to a 900MHz P3. Their claim to fame is that the whole board only uses 10-15 Watts...at 1.2GHz. True intel makes underclocked mobile Celerons that are blazing fast, but still not that low power. And that intel chip cost more than an entire Via Eden motherboard!! The via boards are tweaked for Fun projects. And they run cool so you can put them in many places you'd never put a normal motherboard. Many come with options to run on BATTERIES or DC power. Try that with a normal PC!
As for not having Linux on the mind that was a HUGE mistake on their part...Absolutely HUGE!! Their processor and the tech to make it x86 like is remarkable...on the fly emmulation...they could do anything! on demand....but they should have done their OWN at some point. They had this Linus guy working on their microcode... it's too bad he wasn't interested enough in Linux to do a native port to their processors...that would have rocked. But he's still technically on the payroll...so maybe...
If pocket PC/zaurus modding is what you want check out Gumstix.com. It's an intel XScale processor 200 or 400MHz with 64Mb ram. It's ultra tiny but still really, really new [they only started in January!] And it runs Open Source Linux installed right out-of-the-box!!
You gotta remember, that type of mindshare positioning is a classic MS tactic [i.e. buy MS because Bill Gates is really rich works really well on those wall street types] MS has already anounced they want Google's "lunch"! Google should really take the first shot. Of course MS can fix its broswer easily for free...but they don't WANT to!!! You need a 500 LB gorilla to get them to move. And if MS does move...IE is now fixed to be standards compliant by a mandatory patch from MS and all those other "broken" pages magically work too, meaning you won't be needing IE specific tags to get YOUR standard's compliant page to work anymore.
actually that's a great idea. A 500 LB gorilla like google could really serve to keep all the big players honest! Google has nothing to loose by adopting web standards and everything to gain. MS key bargining chip is OS integration...If Google tries to play in that space they will loose. They need to ensure they create their own space to play in. Open and vocal endorcement of W3C standards as well as implementing them to the fullest is one way google can keep the playing field level. Their Primary market is internet searching...not web services...but keeping MS from fragmenting that market is a very important goal. Even MS is not big enough to deliberately break Google in IE... the uproar would be huge!
That a punk-kid college drop out started what's now a mulit-billion dollar company!! Where the irony comes in is that those very same companies...it doesn't matter who: Cisco, HP, SGI, nVidia, Microsoft, Apple...and the list goes on... Young out-of-work innovative kids. Would never have be allowed their success in today's world. The very companies they founded are continuing to work harder and harder to make sure that NEVER happens again... that's the lesson here more than anything else. Look where all the successful companies came from...so why do we need new/stricter laws?
Actually, the problem is that "normal" meatspace patents are fairly straight forward in inplementation. You can break out the blueprints [often included in the patent!] and compare your new idea to theirs. Much of the "innovation" the patent office claims is because your new hack around the current patent holder is ALSO patentable!! But with software, the author cites the results and locks the code up as "trade secret". so even proving that you're not infringing is impossible without going to court to sue for it.
But if they said up front they were going to bork people's systems they'd get in big trouble... So they're going to SAY pirates won't get downloads...then do something else. If you don't have a legal validated copy you won't be able to complain no matter what they do! Get it!
It's not deleted until the drive is defraged and the empty space shreaded 7 times!!!
The problem is that the FCC was mandated to balance the spectrum between the haves and have nots...allowing for large public interest and smaller special interests to have a voice in the same markets. Under the current leadership they've went solely mercenary...to the highest bidder, damn the mandate. It's almost weekly that the big guys get bigger, and the small school stations get squeezed out on techinicalities! The roll out of HDTV has been stalled for 7 years now!!! Because of last minute lobbying by multinational/entertainment/tech companies trying to get end-to-end control of something free. Proposals to increase publicly available bands in the prime real estate about to be freed up for ultra low wattage things like Wireless internet and other communications go unattended while the FCC is already counting the profits they'll get selling the public's resource to the highest corperate bidder. In the manner of radio spectrum policy & public accountability the FCC is failing it's mandate famously!!
It's time to face it that deregulation was just a wall street political coup so the players could make a lot of quick cash wrecking all those stable companies and using the profits to move the jobs offshore!
That's what internet and cable is for....so that part is covered!
All of the big players, MS, Adobe, HP, IBM, etc are trying to turn the W3c into another version of IEEE or MPEG where they can reimlement their "old boys" standards. The heads of w3c need to wake up and realize that their orginazitions goals are directly contrary to most of their corperate "sponsor's" goals to get rich. Frankly, I think that Mozilla, opera, and Troll tech should focus on getting ALL of the web standards in place. A true CSS2, XHTML, etc solution is very powerful...realize that most of the web is still operating on crappy hacks of HTML4....even CSS2 is 5 years old!!!
Part of the problem is that there is a large philosophical difference between comercial software and OSS. Commerical software companies want every feature locked up in a giant complex mega-program. They "tolerate" plugin developers because it serves to Borrow the communities interests and keep them comming back. OSS on the other hand only thrives with small modular pieces. W3c's original designs fit that model very nicely...and they're not even being used all the way yet!!!! I routinely see PHP projects that make no use at all of higher-level web standards...hell, even slashdot only uses HTML 3.2...I'd love to see SVG implemented...even if those companies need to strip out the spec and sub-define it. SVG is a classic example of why I say they're getting crapflooded. It's readily apparent that SVG was "pre-fabbed" by Adobe as a Flash replacement browser rather than a data type. If what everybody is saying is true about it, the spec violates all of the principles of simplicity the W3c set out to create. Frankly SVG is the most begged for thing because a page like slashdot could exist without any graphics at all, it could be a pure asci stream!, if SVG support was handled properly...
Anyway, the biggest thing the browser developers need to do is start pushing normal web standards...they allow for cleaner presentation, more reusable server-side code and simply work better. There's only 3 non-ms browser makers of influance left...it's time they declare war on non-wc3 compliant browsers and put an end to all those 1999 era trogs!!! After all, windows browsing is covered by at least 2 of them...and downloading a simle browser like Opera or firefox has gotten to be less harmful than service packs from MS for 1999 IE!!! The evilist of evils would be to somehow create a new windows mime type for Alt browsers so that IE would treat pages opened like a "plugin" and open a stripped GUI of mozilla instead....It's amazing how many people will download realplayer, flash, shocwave, and Gator, but not put a little effort in Opera or Firefox which is SMALLER!!!
The problem with the PTO is the first come, first served thinking that permeates the office. Software was forbidden for nearly 30 years before the first patents including any software were granted. the problem with that is that very much of the industry was already out there. The PTO's burden of proof is only "that it hasn't been patented before" not that it's a truly original work or being done 100 other places.
I can see lots of reasons for this. from ISPs that distribute windows only software, to software and hardware you just can't live without. If you want to boot into windows, do what you gotta do then save the info back to your native Linux. It works pretty well the other way, but then your always tied to windows formats like FAT32...he wants to cut that cord!!
But when it tries to actually install, they'll check your serial number and THEN bork your system much like SP1 did. Then it adds extra hassle to people who didn't pay....if they're grandmas, and aunts, they'll get mildly pissed off for being "lied" to. If they're college students or such they'll either reinstall which is a big hassle with lots of warez downloaded, or they'll spring for a student copy which is really cheap.
Don't look at it as "singling them out" but rather as "hassling" them for not being legal and registered! That's MS right to do with their software...and it let's people running without paying know that they had to do extra to "get around" this... it's to the point you can't "accidentally" pirate windows anymore!
If somebody really wanted to be clever, they'd time a "linux switch" campaign to start the day XP2 is released...perhaps an easy to use version that can cover all the Grandmas and aunts out there. And free to pass around. It'll be a great time to point out that MS wants $300 for you to keep what you've got [because nobody pirates XP home and most will have to pay full price for XP Pro to keep their stuff!!], or you can use Linux LEGALLY for free!!! Novell could do this easily because they already have contacts at big retailers. they should be printing the LiveCDs off right now to stock the shelfs with. After all Suse 9.1 personal is only $30! Now if they could just get a boxed version of Crossover and WineX On the shelves for a reasonable price they'd be in a great position to pull this off!!!
who's to say they don't pull another SP1 and let you download it, but the installer borks your system if it can't validate your registration. Then it's got the added "convinence" to MS of having to make people not use their computers [until pirates crack it or they reinstall] or run out and pay now for a key that will work!
After all, you only have to release source to those who you give programs too. In the case of hardware, use the OEM CD to fufill your GPL obligation and get it over with...then you won't show up here and those who want source will have it ...and never complain..get it. Also, password protect your downloads to limit them to registered hardware users. That way you're not "distributing" the drivers on line, only providing updates to your customers.
remember, your business is selling devices, not software...that's just a service. The trap many "hardware" vendors have fallen into lately is trying to sell $20 plastic hardware for inflated prices by locking up the drivers...it's a dead business model, you gotta adapt!